How Do I Get Started Growing Strawberries?

In this episode of AgriCultured, Farm Director Pam Jahnke talks with Ed Bures, a UW – Madison Agriculture Professor and owner of Bures Berry Patch, about how to grow your own strawberries at home.

Common Issues in Growing Your Own Strawberries

A lot of times when people decide to begin strawberry farming, they run into issues that deter them from doing it again. Some of the biggest downfalls of growing strawberries are weeds taking over the garden and something eating them or digging them up.

In a garden, your biggest foe is most likely going to be weeds. If you are trying to raise organic strawberries, your best option would be growing them in a pot or hanging basket. Growing them this way gives you control of how much water the plant gets and you can control insects through mechanical means.

To help prevent animals from eating or digging up the produce in your garden, you may want to purchase garden fencing to keep pests away from your growing plants.

Getting Your Crop Established

In southern Wisconsin, perennial strawberries are planted in early spring. Typically, flowering occurs late May into early June, so you are likely to have plants producing fruit mid to late June in the first year of planting.

In a commercial practice, they pull the blossoms off in June to establish the perennial plants and to succeed for the long term, which is three years of picking. Pulling the blooms off of the strawberry plant establishes the crown and root systems of the plants, which makes for a more bountiful picking. If you don’t pull the blooms off the first year, the plant will have shallow roots and will struggle to survive to the next year of picking.

Are Strawberries Still an Option with Limited Space?

Strawberries can be grown in raised beds, planters, and other smaller garden areas, which are common for home gardeners. These plants are commonly called day-neutral types, which means you plant them in a pot or raised bed and plant them more densely than if you were planting in a larger garden.

You want to put a lot of strawberry plants in close together because each of the plants are going to send up fruit clusters throughout the season. They continuously send up clusters of strawberries for about six months of the year.

After these day-neutral strawberries produce for about six months, the plant will then be expired. After the plant finishes blooming, it will need to be removed and you can plant all new strawberry plants for your next harvest.

Spacing Out Your Strawberry Garden

When you are getting started growing strawberries, it is important to decide how many strawberries you want to produce and if you want them to produce long-term. If you want your strawberry plants to survive over a year, you need to plan ahead and provide space for the plant to grow during its first year. Typically, strawberries take quite a bit of space to grow bountifully over multiple years.

The amount of strawberries you are hoping to pick will determine how many strawberries you should plant in your garden. Typically, one row of strawberries will produce about one pound of crop.

For more tips and information on growing produce, check out Blain’s Farm & Fleet’s Hobby Farming and Gardening blogs.